


Spell It Out

by APgeeksout



Category: NXT
Genre: Flirting, M/M, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-17
Updated: 2018-06-17
Packaged: 2019-05-23 14:11:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14935796
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/APgeeksout/pseuds/APgeeksout
Summary: Aleister casts a spell with a little blood, some curry spices, and a lot of wishful thinking.





	Spell It Out

**Author's Note:**

  * For [chasesstarlight](https://archiveofourown.org/users/chasesstarlight/gifts).



> Set somewhere between the 3.28.18 episode of NXT and Takeover: New Orleans.

“That was fast!” Aliester was already reaching for his wallet before the front door swung all the way open to reveal not the delivery driver from Thai Garden, but the Velveteen Dream, dressed down - by his own standards, anyway - in midnight blue and sheer black, the embroidered accents on his shirt picked out in the same metallic silver as the scarf tied over his hair. 

“You were expecting me?” he asked, using one elegant fingertip to push his sunglasses down the bridge of his nose, the better to appraise Aleister over the top of the ornate frames. 

“Do I look like a man who is easily surprised?” he bluffed. Anyway, Dream should have a fair idea just what sort he looked like, after the slow, thorough once-over he gave him before he answered.

“Almas managed.” Dream pushed his glasses back into place, reflective lenses aimed pointedly at the still-tender bruise smeared along the curve of his eyebrow.

“Only once, you can be sure of that.” He stepped back, leaving the doorway clear, and gestured into the room behind him. “Come in, if you want.”

He crossed the threshold and held out a bundle of fabric that Aleister slowly recognized as his own suit jacket, rumpled and stained and torn. “The Velveteen Dream came to pay you a visit in the trainers’ room, but you were already gone. You left this behind. Like Cinderella.”

“Does that make you Prince Charming?” A smile came to his face, faster than in the ring, broader than it’d been for a while, even as he took the crumpled garment back. Even as he remembered being jumped from behind, getting dragged around by its lapels. 

“All that and more,” Dream said, and Aleister felt his eyes on him as he hung the coat’s forlorn remains on a hook on the back of the door. “I thought there might be something you didn’t want to lose sewn into the lining,” he continued, “Or some hands you wouldn’t want a sample of your blood to fall into.”

It was a good call, and a perceptive one. One that implied he was still paying attention to Aleister even though they hadn’t shared a ring lately. He let himself feel flattered and warmed by that, knowing how highly The Velveteen Dream prized attention. 

When he turned back from the door, Dream had tilted his glasses back down and was surveying the room like he was scouting locations for a photo shoot - or a fight.

“You were expecting more candles?” he asked,

“Maybe. I’m just assuming they’re all in the bedroom.” 

“You angling for an invitation, Velveteen Dream?”

Dream smiled like the Cheshire Cat and hid his eyes behind his glasses again. “Baby, the Dream doesn’t accept invitations, he indulges prolonged begging.”

“What if I begged you to stop talking about yourself in the third person?”

“Ha!” he exclaimed, his mouth a wide O of theatrical affront, arms crossed over his chest in a way that highlighted the definition under the sheer fabric of his shirt. “Just for that, I think you owe me the full tour.”

“I’ll do you one better, even: There’s Tom Yum and d Cashew Chicken on its way; plenty to share, if you want to stay.” 

Dream made a magnanimous _lead the way_ gesture that he took to mean his invitation had been accepted.

The grand tour didn’t take all that long; he’d never been a man with a lot of _stuff_ , and the cost and hassle of overseas shipping had only encouraged him to pare down further. He’d been here for a while now - longer, maybe, than he’d stayed in any one place since he was a child - but not so long yet that he’d begun to collect things to fill the house, to make it harder to leave later on. 

“Nice place, but it’s like a hotel.” Dream pronounced, perching on the sofa, one arm spread along the back. 

Somehow, he made the big leather couch - comfortable but generic - that had come with the rental look like it had been specially designed to display him. He suspected Dream could pull that trick with a nondescript queen bed, too, and let himself wonder if he’d get to test that theory soon. 

“There’s not a single thing that says ‘Aleister Black lives here’.”

“What can I say?” He shrugged and settled on the couch himself. “I use chalk for all my channeling circles these days. Landlords have gotten so fussy about runes carved into the hardwood, you know?”

That earned him a smile. “So, are the sacrificial goats penned up in the backyard, then? Or is _that_ what you’re keeping in the bedroom?”

He laughed again. Hard to believe how often he found himself laughing with a man who had so recently been such a thorn in his side. He knew somehow that he would never share a meal or an easy joke with, say, Almas or Killian Dain, even far, far down the road. 

“Sorry to disappoint,” he said, and leaned down to reach beneath the couch, into his favorite ball of fluff’s favorite hiding place. “This is the only four-legged resident.” He settled the cat onto the small patch of couch real estate between them. “My familiar. Don’t make direct eye contact.”

Dream’s jaw dropped, scandalized, or at least playing along well. “Or what?”

“Or I wouldn’t get to see the look on your face right now!” He smiled again, and Dream joined him. “This is Totty Potato. He’s my buddy, and if you’re extremely lucky, he might take a selfie with you. He’s very big on Instagram.”

When Dream’s long fingers scritched into Totty’s thick fuzz, they also took a detour to stroke over his own, lingering warm and light atop the bruised knuckles above the T and I in “anti-hero”. Totty purred and offered up his soft belly; Aleister admitted, if only to himself, that Dream probably wouldn’t have to work too hard to get him to do the same.

“So, you’re really just ordering curry and watching _Chopped_?” Dream gestured at the tv, playing low and ignored in front of them. “Not, I don’t know, performing some kind of arcane rite to take down Almas?”

“Moon won’t be in the right alignment until 12:47; I’ve got some time to kill before I need to strip down and paint myself with oils,” he said, almost managing to keep his tone deadpan. 

“Need help reaching your back?” 

After another moment of both of them paying Totty his proper tribute, he asked, “You really think I need a ritual to go over?”

Dream looked him over again, even took his glasses off and hooked them onto the neck of his shirt to lay naked eyes on him, slow and searching and intense. “Maybe not,” he allowed. “What about me? I know you worked some magic on me.” Dream reached out and tapped at the the hoop at the corner of Aleister’s mouth.

“It’s true.” He smiled, the pad of Dream’s finger catching against the skin of his lower lip. “I’ve been trying very hard to summon you here for awhile now.”

“And now that I’m here, what were you planning to do with me?”

“Make you say my name, for starters.” Before the doorbell rang, there was just enough time for Aleister to lean in and kiss the defiant look right off of his face. Just a taste of magic.


End file.
